The Ordo�ez Brigade

[G-Fafif]

US and Cuba reportedly talking about normalizing relations. Maybe we find a shortstop that way.

[G-Fafif]

BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities?

[Benjamin Grimm]

My first thought was travel. I'd love to be able to go to Cuba.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

[youtube:1ly4xc1c]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube:1ly4xc1c]

[MFS62]

Ben,
My pal, the Canadian Blue Jays fan, vacations in Cuba every few years and loves it.

But I don't believe the good intentions for a moment.
I think its a Commie plot for them to get Jorge Toca back.

Later

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Considering the history of political repression, the police state, & torture, why would Cuba want to normalize relations with the US?

[Ceetar]

G-Fafif wrote: BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities?

Yeah, if they normalize relations, how does that affect the Cuban players? It'll probably change the way they can enter the league.

But it'll also allow for better scouting of them I'd think.

In the meantime, could get some cool exhibitions against Cuban teams though.

[G-Fafif]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [youtube]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube]

Holy Luis Lopez, that's Gold Glove stuff!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Amazin'ly, it's not the only song inspired by Ordonez, as folksinger Kate Jacobs has one here:

http://www.katejacobsmusic.com/www.katejacobsmusic.com/home_game.html

[G-Fafif]

Amazin'ly, it's not the only song inspired by Ordonez, as folksinger Kate Jacobs has one here: http://www.katejacobsmusic.com/www.katejacobsmusic.com/home_game.html

This one I know from, and it really is rather ballad like, which is why the title of the Isotopes' number threw me.

Rey-Rey: so nice, they sing about him twice.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I wonder what ol' Rey is up to... he really did fall off the map.

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Considering the history of political repression, the police state, & torture, why would Cuba want to normalize relations with the US?

*chortle* *chortle*

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Considering the history of political repression, the police state, & torture, why would Cuba want to normalize relations with the US?

I think a couple weeks in Cuba, away from what the government lets tourists see, would redefine what you think is real oppression, a real police state and real torture. I also think you'd see why Cubans are willing to leave their families and everything they have to risk their lives in barely seaworthy boats for the opportunity to wash up on our shores. There's a reason we have an immigration issue and not an emigration issue.

[Edgy MD]

Cuba may certainly be torturing and repressing at a higher rate, but it doesn't make what the US does at the southeastern end of the island any less real.

[batmagadanleadoff]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [youtube]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube]

The only reason they named a song after Rey is because they're too young to have seen Rey play.

[Guest d'Kong76]

And I can't find no one to relate
Because I'm still batting .188
Oh man I just ain't no good at the plate

[batmagadanleadoff]

d'Kong76 wrote: And I can't find no one to relate Because I'm still batting .188 Oh man I just ain't no good at the plate

I shoulda listened all the way through.

The Ballad of Rey Ordonez -- The Isotopes

I left my kids behind
And I left my wife alone
Hopped a cyclone fence into Buffalo
And I don't wanna talk about it

Now I'm making highlights
Like nobody's ever seen
But if the team ain't winning they take it out on me
And I don't wanna talk about it

'Cause I'm the Cuban Missile baby
But I just can't get no respect
Because I can't find a way to connect
They walk the pitcher when I'm on deck
And I'm the Cuban Missile child
And I can't find no one to relate
Because I'm still batting .188
Oh man I just ain't no good at the plate

Now my career is tanking
And my contract is up for sale
But I can't go back home or they'll put me in jail
And I don't wanna talk about it

I'm hated in New York now
And Tampa didn't work out
No love in old Chicago
No luck in San Diego
More bad news in Seattle
And Havana is so far away now

[Centerfield]

G-Fafif wrote: BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities?

For real. Cigars first. Baseball second.

Duh.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

I miss the Rey Ordonez Deathwatch web page.

[Frayed Knot]

So does this thaw mean that Castro finally admits his culpability in the JFK assassination?

[Centerfield]

Mets � Willets Point wrote: I miss the Rey Ordonez Deathwatch web page.

Can you imagine how simple the Great Rey Debates would have been if WAR was around then?

[Guest d'Kong76]

Don't start, CF

[Guest themetfairy]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: My first thought was travel. I'd love to be able to go to Cuba.

Me too.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Expansion team in Havana. Road trips for Mets games.

[Frayed Knot]

Cab it to the game in a 1950s era Chevy

[ashie62]

Best Cuban athlete? Boxer Teofilo Stevenson.

[G-Fafif]

George Vecsey, visitor to Cuba in 1991, on the news from 2014.

When I was in Cuba in 1991, aging baseball fans asked about the old Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. How was Bob Feller? How was Al Lopez? They were polishing ancient memories the way they maintained vintage 1950�s cars. They loved the game itself, debated the strategy of their national teams, held on to the history of the old banished professional clubs like Almendares of Havana. This was their national sport, brought there in the 1860�s by Cubans named Guillo who had worked in Mobile, Ala., and nourished by Esteban Bellan who played for Fordham University and the old professional Troy Haymakers. Later, Americans came for the Spanish-American War and played baseball in their leisure time. Baseball is now part of the patrimony. In the inescapable age of the Web and videos, information crackling over the narrow sea between Florida and Cuba, fans know that Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman have made it big in the major leagues. Is there more where they came from? This is the first question people ask of a sports columnist who went to Cuba for the 1991 Pan-American Games and has kept up on it ever since. Perhaps the national baseball treasures would be the most desired product in Cuba (although, as Rachel Maddow pointed out, Cuban-trained ballet dancers are in demand all over the U.S.) The level of potential major-league talent may be very thin. Plus, it�s really not important. What matters is that Cubans have been starved by the block-headed policies of Fidel and the follies of American leaders. Now President Obama is bringing rationality to half a century of mutual apartheid. Cubans have been living in many forms of poverty. I got the feel in 1991, including a trip to the Bay of Pigs. *- I discovered I could buy items like shampoo � shampoo! � in a dollar store to which I had access because of my journalist credential for the Pan-American Games. *- A well-placed Cuban, volunteering as a journalistic resource, admitted to not minding a hot shower in a hotel. *- Our interpreter, who spoke perfect English, had to wait for two straggling buses to get home after a 12-hour day. We had to persuade her to take a cab we provided. My talented new friends were strangers in their own land. Never underestimate the anger in the aging Cuban-Americans, now surfacing. But life goes on. Surely, there are more players like Minnie Mi�oso and Tony P�rez in Cuba. But more important, there are people who need nourishment and work and hope. And shampoo. And visas to travel across the narrow sea -- not in a flimsy boat like Orlando Hernandez, El Duque, but in something safe. Baseball is the least of it.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

fans know that Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman have made it big in the major leagues. Is there more where they came from?

If there are, we may witness a Bay of Puigs Invasion.